Banner Message
SEARCH OUR INVENTORY OF THOUSANDS OF NEW & USED BOOKS
ALL USED BOOKS IN VERY GOOD TO EXCELLENT CONDITION -- MANY LIKE NEW!
Poetry
Randy Blasing's ninth book of poems, set now in memory in his native Minnesota and now in New England, New Mexico, or Turkey, centers on his drama of dying four times in open-heart surgery and emerging from his near-death experience a different person, with renewed faith in the sanctity of every day.
"A Change of Heart, with its nod to Auden, is a mature collection celebratory of life. The speaker who cheats death is that much more aware of the living, breathing world around him. Heightened meditations are rendered in tender, explosive sonnets and exact blank verse. Here is the heart as muscle and life force, as vehicle for romance, as the beating meter of each of these glorious poems." --Denise Duhamel
"James Wright famously aspired to write poetry that privileged, above all, 'the pure, clear word.'
Randy Blasing seeks the same demanding goal in this fluent and moving collection of sonnets and near-sonnets, poems limpid, graceful, and fearless in their reckonings with mortality, in which craft and longing are alchemized into something like wonder." --David Wojahn
Randy Blasing's ninth book of poems, set now in memory in his native Minnesota and now in New England, New Mexico, or Turkey, centers on his drama of dying four times in open-heart surgery and emerging from his near-death experience a different person, with renewed faith in the sanctity of every day.
In A User's Guide to Spacetime, the human desire to be immortal is a recurrent theme. Thus, in "Techwed," as the carrier of life, the astronaut "dons an algorithm like a vest, / Assembles the hybrid," and then "hears the wheels of Infinity grind." In "Siblings of the Sun," he is "Born in the unconscious," and, in "Pseudosphere," he is "in Ge's breath-body based." Significantly, even in "Herald," although the Hermetic lapis, "the figure [of Christ] veiled in matter," exists "in some other place [. . .] / Light years from Earth," the astronaut himself remains immortal because he is indwelt by the Spirit of Christ. For that reason, in "Compass," he may "Restore the Rebis"--the "dual being born of the alchemical union of opposites" (masculine/feminine) and recognized as "a symbol of the self"--and may "Beyond the compass of the symbol rise." In other words, as these poems demonstrate, "Faith-based the astronaut pursues his course" ("Station"). However, they also suggest that, when the treasure is hard to attain, there is always "more to be sought than the scripture".
In A User's Guide to Spacetime, the human desire to be immortal is a recurrent theme. Thus, in "Techwed," as the carrier of life, the astronaut "dons an algorithm like a vest, / Assembles the hybrid," and then "hears the wheels of Infinity grind." In "Siblings of the Sun," he is "Born in the unconscious," and, in "Pseudosphere," he is "in Ge's breath-body based." Significantly, even in "Herald," although the Hermetic lapis, "the figure [of Christ] veiled in matter," exists "in some other place [. . .] / Light years from Earth," the astronaut himself remains immortal because he is indwelt by the Spirit of Christ. For that reason, in "Compass," he may "Restore the Rebis"--the "dual being born of the alchemical union of opposites" (masculine/feminine) and recognized as "a symbol of the self"--and may "Beyond the compass of the symbol rise." In other words, as these poems demonstrate, "Faith-based the astronaut pursues his course" ("Station"). However, they also suggest that, when the treasure is hard to attain, there is always "more to be sought than the scripture".
It's 1936, and the Yankees have just hired a star center fielder whose name sounds like music. What could be a better time for Papa-Angelo's grandson to be born? Christened after the legendary ballplayer, young Joseph Paul learns much at his Italian grandfather's knee - about holding your breath in front of the radio during a 3-2 count with the bases loaded and having the audacity to dream big dreams. After all, the boy's ne'er-do-well father is out of the picture, and it is Papa-Angelo's job to teach his grandson what it means to be a hero.
In a poignant novel told in verse, Maria Testa paints a picture of a timeless bond between a grandson and his immigrant grandfather - and of finding his own place in a brave new world.
This long-awaited volume brings together for the first time the life's work of a major American voice. In a remarkable generation of poets, Galway Kinnell was an acknowledged, true master. From the book-length poem memorializing the grit, beauty, and swarming assertion of immigrant life along a lower Manhattan avenue, to searing poems of human conflict and war, to incandescent reflections on love, family, and the natural world--including "Blackberry Eating," "St. Francis and the Sow," and "After Making Love We Hear Footsteps"--to the unflinchingly introspective poems of his later life, Kinnell's work lastingly shaped the consciousness of his age. Spanning 65 years of intense, inspired creativity, this volume, with its inclusion of previously uncollected poems, is the essential collection for old and new devotees of a "poet of the rarest ability . . . who can flesh out music, raise the spirits, and break the heart." (Boston Globe)
The description for this book, Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo, will be forthcoming.
and an Afterword by April Bernard
In Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems, fans may indulge in all of Poe's most imaginative short-stories, including The Fall of the House of Usher, The Murders in Rue Morgue, The Tell-Tale Heart, Ligeia, and Ms. In a Bottle. His complete early and miscellaneous poetic masterpieces are here also, including The Raven, Ulalume, Annabel Lee, Tamerlane, as well as select reviews and narratives.
The life of American writer Edgar Allan Poe was characterized by a dramatic series of successes and failures, breakdowns and recoveries, personal gains and hopes dashed through, despite which he created some of the finest literature the world has ever known. Over time, his works have influenced such major creative forces as the French poets Charles Baudelaire and Andre Gide, filmmaker D.W. Griffith, and modern literary legend Allen Ginsberg. Best known for his poems and short fiction, Poe perfected the psychological thriller, invented the detective story, and rarely missed transporting the reader to his own supernatural realm. He has also been hailed posthumously as one of the finest literary critics of the nineteenth century.
"The English Dante of choice."--Hugh Kenner.
"Exactly what we have waited for these years, a Dante with clarity, eloquence, terror, and profoundly moving depths."--Robert Fagles, Princeton University.
"Tough and supple, tender and violent . . . vigorous, vernacular . . . Mandelbaum's Dante will stand high among modern translations."-- "The Christian Science Monitor"
This volume contains a rich selection of Pope's work, including such well-known poems as the title selection -- a philosophical meditation on the nature of the universe and man's place in it -- and The Rape of the Lock, a mock-epic of rare charm and skill. Also included are Ode on Solitude, The Dying Christian to His Soul, Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, An Essay on Criticism, Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog, Epistle [IV] to Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington: Of the Use of Riches, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot; or, Prologue to the Satires and more.
Taken together, these poems offer an excellent sampling of Pope's imaginative genius and the felicitous blending of word, idea and image that earned him a place among the leading lights of 18th-century literature.
Jason E. "Jay" Walker was raised in Cranston, a suburb at the southern border of Providence, RI. He's never been interested in anything but the arts and humanities - entertaining, educating, inspiring, moving, and connecting (with) people - and everything he's done with his life is to pursue his lifelong dream of success in those fields. He was first alternate for the Providence Poetry Slam(TM) team in 1999 and has performed in and/or hosted poetry events throughout the RI area. He's also an established actor in RI independent film and semi-professional theater. He currently lives in Hopedale, MA, but he plans to one day live in warmer climes and travel the world.
These poems, which examine the spiritual as well as the psychological effects of being a Christian, offer an amalgam of diverse yet related influences: John Donne's "Holy Sonnets"; Alfred, Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam A.H.H.; and Emily Dickinson's "Behind me--dips Eternity--." Another significant source may also be apparent: the sonnet sequences of such Renaissance poets as Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, and William Shakespeare. However, although the poems in Galactic Pilgrim generate a sense of thematic sequence, and although--composed of octets with variable rhyme schemes--they proceed in the same stanzaic form, they are, most decidedly, not sonnets. Rather, they are, as samples of formal poetry, what their author prefers to call either "triads" (since each poem contains three stanzas) or "quaternals" (a coinage that underscores the role of the reader as the fourth component, the co-creative entity, that responds to, and intertwines with, each triadic structure). All in all, reflecting key concepts from Jungian psychology and the new physics, these patterned lyrics seek to unfold--through form no less than through content--a unified and coherent philosophic vision steeped in the model life of the Christian Redeemer.
These poems, which examine the spiritual as well as the psychological effects of being a Christian, offer an amalgam of diverse yet related influences: John Donne's "Holy Sonnets"; Alfred, Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam A.H.H.; and Emily Dickinson's "Behind me--dips Eternity--." Another significant source may also be apparent: the sonnet sequences of such Renaissance poets as Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, and William Shakespeare. However, although the poems in Galactic Pilgrim generate a sense of thematic sequence, and although--composed of octets with variable rhyme schemes--they proceed in the same stanzaic form, they are, most decidedly, not sonnets. Rather, they are, as samples of formal poetry, what their author prefers to call either "triads" (since each poem contains three stanzas) or "quaternals" (a coinage that underscores the role of the reader as the fourth component, the co-creative entity, that responds to, and intertwines with, each triadic structure). All in all, reflecting key concepts from Jungian psychology and the new physics, these patterned lyrics seek to unfold--through form no less than through content--a unified and coherent philosophic vision steeped in the model life of the Christian Redeemer.
Troubling things are happening at a small town asylum. Trapped in a patient room during a riot, one nurse records what might be her final thoughts-and peers into the minds of her subjects in a series of disturbing stories. Fearing for her life, she desperately waves her hand through the bars of her window hoping someone will notice and help... but by then it may be too late.
The left shoe angrily kicked the right shoes heel;
it wanted to step into its space ideal
instead of being forced to move sideways
and switch its preplanned straight path into a maze.
In the narrative poem The Joys of Learning on Graduation Day, two shoes have stage rage. Like these shoes, we may occasionally want only a single straight path. Most times, though, the mazes of our lives completely amaze us. Especially on a holiday or a celebration, we love having the freedom to choose our way amid diverse pathways.
Holidays Amaze has different kinds of poetry: maze poems, prayer poems, shaped poems, sonnets, and narratives. The varied poems are enhanced by Christian content, historic elements, dream/reality sections, and amazing interactions among family members, friends, and animals. In Holidays Amaze, success often happens, such as with resolutions on New Years Day, an unblocked writers block, a reduction of anxiety, and a decrease in impatience while waiting in line.
Multimodal elements add to the amazing content of Holidays Amaze. Images are visible in the mazes, photos, metaphors, formats, shapes, and icons. Aural components can be heard in the rhythms, rhymes, alliteration, and other sound elements.
Leah Keith has won the Allen Ginsberg Award for outstanding poetry through the VSA of RI three times, and she was chosen to represent them as their Poet Laureate for the past three years. As the Poet Laureate she has been given themes to write about and read her poems at certain events such as, the celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act at the Pawtucket, Rhode Island Town Hall.
Leah has a voice and she wants you to know it. She wants you to hear her before you decide who she is. She wants you to see her and take the time to get to know her before you think you already do. She will surprise you with her unique wisdom and colorful sense of humor. She is not what you expect her to be. She is proud of who she Is and she makes no apologies for it. In this book Leah uses her voice in the form of poetry and art.
Read by the Author, Jimmy Stewart
Now, his voice will live on forever....
"I'm sure I never said to myself: 'Now, Jim--why don't you sit down and write a poem.' It's still a mystery to me, but I think probably it's something that happened by accident--like a lot of things have happened in my life."
So begins this delightful collection of poetry by America's best-loved actor, Jimmy Stewart. The poems document a life that isn't too different from yours or mine.
Jimmy Stewart won the hearts of generations of movie viewers with a confused innocence and stammering delivery that made his acting seem genuine and effortless. Somehow he managed to make the boy next door into a national hero. Now, in Jimmy Stewart and His Poems, the consummate Everyman reads tales from his everyday life.
From fishing trips and dog stories to a hilarious account of a photo safari where the camera was lost to a hungry hyena, the poems are related in Jimmy Stewart"s inimitable voice...
;; ;;;;;;
The truly keepsake AudioBook confirms what we all expected--that the real Jimmy Stewart is every bit as endearing as the film characters he's portrayed.
"Jimmy Stewart and His Poems" is a perfect gift, one that fans will treasure as much as Jimmy Stewart's timeless performances.
Original poetry, compelling photographs, and illuminating historical summaries depict the rise of textile mills and King Cotton in the 19th century through the turn of the 20th. With industrialization came a matrix of events, sometimes deadly, always in the name of prosperity: Labor "paced' for the first time to feed the world's frenzy for finished cloth. Northern collusion in slave-grown southern cotton. The tuberculosis epidemic. Kissing the shuttle (the “kiss of death”) was a common weaving practice that spread TB. Through the eyes of a young girl inspired by the author’s ancestors, experience daily life in a mill and mill village, a TB sanatorium, and a Rhode Island “open-air” school—the nation’s first. Discover how Rhode Island led a public health movement, one that remains relevant today. Called “a blend of both triumph and tragedy” by Rhode Island’s Historian Laureate, this book by an award winning poet and occupational therapist will inform, surprise, and entertain fans of history and poetry alike.
Kissing the Shuttle – A Lyric History ISBN 978-0-692-06921-9
In this luminous collection, Daniel Ladinsky--best known for his bestselling interpretations of the great Sufi poet Hafiz--brings together the timeless work of twelve of the world's finest spiritual writers, six from the East and six from the West. Once again, Ladinsky reveals his talent for creating profound and playful renditions of classic poems for a modern audience. Rumi's joyous, ecstatic love poems; St. Francis's loving observations of nature through the eyes of Catholicism; Kabir's wild, freeing humor that synthesizes Hindu, Muslim, and Christian beliefs; St. Teresa's sensual verse; and the mystical, healing words of Sufi poet Hafiz--these along with inspiring works by Rabia, Meister Eckhart, St. Thomas Aquinas, Mira, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and Tukaram are all "love poems by God" from writers considered "conduits of the divine." Together, they form a spiritual treasure to cherish always.